"“We’re watching with great interest what is happening in Scotland and also in Catalonia,” Mr Zaia, who served as a minister under Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, told foreign journalists in Rome.

“The Catalans have the same problem with Madrid that we have with Rome. We are treated as if we are on the far-flung frontiers of the Roman empire.”

The sentiment is shared by at least one million people (official data are to be released Friday in the Piazza dei Signori in Treviso)

People in Veneto are tired of being milked as cows from the central Government. This is not an issue belonging to a specific political party, this is an issue of Venetian people who want their freedom and their money back from the corrupted politicians in Rome.